Page 57 of Such a Feral Little Lamb
“No. Wherever he is, he got there alone.”
“No other survivors?”
Mason shakes his head, and I sigh. No doubt Dane’s pissed off enough people that someone has it out for him, but there aren’t many people in this town, and why wouldn’t they go to Nia first?
Callum said he left alone. If I trust him—and I suppose I have to—then Dane made it out here and simply vanished.
The concern I feel is less for Dane and more for the implications of him going missing like this. We scour the park, then the abandoned school, and turn up nothing.
Otto is the one to nudge me when it starts to get dark. “We should get back up there. We need to coordinate with the others, and it’s not safe to stay here.”
Mason is at his shoulder. He says nothing, but the same concern flickers in his eyes. Fuck. We almost lost Otto—and part of me knows he’s right, that he can never go back because he’ll never be safe there again—and now wehavelost Dane.
When we reach the centre of town, we find the others already waiting. Callum is the only one not obviously carrying a weapon, and he greets Mason with a short nod.
“Anything?” Mason asks. He’s not just asking about what Callum saw, like the rest of us would.
“No,” Callum replies. “We should head up.”
Not even Blake argues as we head up the narrow, cobblestone street that takes us to the church. The sun has already set, but itisn’t fully dark quite yet. Mason slips in just ahead of me, Otto at my back. I want to drop to the rear myself. I’m not scared to have Otto back there. I’d just feel better if it were me instead. Besides, he’s already been through enough.
About halfway up the hill, something catches my attention. A noise. I freeze in place and hear the scuff of Otto’s boots as he stops behind me.
Nothing. Mason’s stopped too, ahead, watching me silently. There’s an alley just to my left. I tighten my grip on my bat and take a step closer. I can’t make out anything in the deep shadows. Is Dane down there? Zombies or not, there are any number of ways he could have injured himself out here. The day’s been cold, and he’s been gone long enough that he might not have survived a fall.
“Isaac,” Otto hisses when I take another step closer. I shake my head and grab the torch from my belt. It only has a narrow beam. Mason and Otto whisper behind me and then I feel someone at my back.
Mason, I realise, when his fingers curl over my shoulder. “There’s nothing here,” he murmurs.
I don’t go back. I swing the torch around, lighting up every corner, and he’s right, of course. Maybe I heard a small animal, never mind the fact that I haven’t seen any signs of one since we arrived.
Maybe I didn’t hear anything at all.
I flick off the torch and sigh, allowing myself, for a moment, to sag into Mason’s grip.
“We should have been able to find him.”
“We should have,” he agrees.
“Do you think zombies got him?”
Mason is silent for a long time. Too long. He squeezes my shoulder, and his lips brush my ear. “No. Come on. Let’s go back.”
I frown at the shadowy outline of him as I follow him out of the alley. The others have come back, and even Blake seems concerned—though I think more for Dane than for me.
“Nothing,” I say, and he kicks a pebble, sending it skittering down the hill.
Autumn is practically swaying on her feet, she looks so tired, and Rae has a comforting arm around her shoulders, though she’s still holding her axe. Callum is as implacable as ever.
And Otto…
Where’s Otto?
I step around Mason and turn in a circle, looking up and down the hill. “Where’s Otto?”
Rae stands straight upright, arm falling from Autumn’s shoulders. “He—He was—”
“He was right here,” Blake says. “We were all here, waiting for you.”
